Iringa fire, August 2024 Iringa, Chunya, Manyoni
The fire started on 3 August 2024 in Iringa, Tanzania, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,573 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 17th largest in Iringa since 2016 (of 71 with a page). Number 7 in Tanzania in 2024, of 70.
- Burnt area
- 10,573ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 3 Aug 2024 – 20 Aug 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 3 Aug
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 520
- in a single hotspot: 81 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.0GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,986 ha in 2016, 1,943 ha in 2017, 3,730 ha in 2018, 3,813 ha in 2019, 22 ha in 2020, 7,300 ha in 2021, 797 ha in 2022, 4,415 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,236 ha that had burned before.
- 3,794 ha Iringa fire, July 2021 7,792 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,503 ha Iringa fire, July 2021 9,842 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,163 ha Chunya fire, July 2016 32,137 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,922 ha Iringa fire, July 2019 97,386 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,865 ha Iringa fire, September 2018 113,445 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,238 ha Iringa fire, July 2023 3,878 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 114 ha Chunya fire, July 2017 12,300 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 112 ha Manyoni fire, August 2018 5,010 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Iringa where it started10,614 ha reached on 2 Aug0.6 %
-
22 ha reached on 2 Aug0.0 %
-
1 ha0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Aug | 26.5 °C | 29 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Aug | 27.3 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Aug | 28.4 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Aug | 27.2 °C | 23 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Aug | 27.6 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Aug | 27.3 °C | 31 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 9 Aug | 26.9 °C | 34 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Aug | 27.3 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Aug | 26.8 °C | 31 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Aug | 27.3 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Aug | 28.0 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 14 Aug | 28.6 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 15 Aug | 28.9 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Aug | 27.1 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Aug | 26.9 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Aug | 26.9 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 19 Aug | 27.2 °C | 26 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 20 Aug | 27.3 °C | 27 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Aug after | 28.5 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 22 Aug after | 26.9 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 23 Aug after | 26.6 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Aug after | 27.1 °C | 25 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Aug after | 26.2 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 26 Aug after | 28.0 °C | 28 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 27 Aug after | 27.2 °C | 39 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 28 Aug after | 27.6 °C | 39 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 29 Aug after | 29.6 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 30 Aug after | 28.6 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 3 August 2024 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 520Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 113,063 haIringa23 August 2026 · 36 days · 11 km away
- 113,445 haIringaSeptember 2018 · 35 days · 21 km away
- 42,802 haIringa28 July 2023 · 43 days · 21 km away
- 75,347 haIringa22 July 2026 · 43 days · 25 km away
- 97,386 haIringa7 July 2019 · 26 days · 27 km away
- 45,221 haManyoni4 July 2017 · 37 days · 29 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Iringa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 August 2024 and 20 August 2024: 18 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,573 hectares (105.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Iringa (10,614 ha, 0.6 %); Chunya (22 ha, 0.0 %); Manyoni (1 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 28.9 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Tanzania (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Emergency number: 112
Satellite cross-check
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.